“Nothing could convince me that any show that has sold two and one-half million copies of its album before the opening night is anything like all bad,” wrote The New York Times‘ Clive Barnes on October 13, 1971 upon the New York debut of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar.  Indeed, the original Jesus Christ Superstar album was a sensation long before it ever hit Broadway’s Mark Hellinger Theatre.  A true hybrid of rock and theater, it was introduced as a record but destined for the world’s stages. The once-controversial rock…